China needs to realize that Western countries do not view Taiwan in a similar way to the semi-autonomous territory of Hong Kong, former British prime minister Tony Blair said.
“It’s important that we understand what China’s position is in relation to Taiwan, how deep this ‘one China’ policy is,” Blair said on Thursday in Singapore. “They have to understand that Taiwan is not the same as Hong Kong, and there are very strong views on this in the West.”
Blair added that the potential for conflict between the US and China over Taiwan is a “big anxiety,” and that the West needs to strengthen its own ability to deal with Beijing, while also being willing to cooperate when possible.
Photo: Bloomberg
His comments at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum came the same week that Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) reasserted Beijing’s “red line” with regard to “separatist forces” in Taiwan in a virtual meeting with US President Joe Biden.
Biden subsequently, although briefly, caused some confusion by describing Taiwan as “independent” to reporters, before walking back his comment.
Blair praised the meeting between Xi and Biden, and said the US position on China was clearly changing.
“The Americans are actually coming to the right type of policy posture towards China,” he said. “None of that means that there is not going to still be some pretty fierce action on both sides, and there are all sorts of risks and dangers with this relationship, but it remains the key to 21st-century stability.”
Part of the problem in dealing with Beijing is that “no one quite knows what China really wants to achieve,” and whether it is only seeking to develop its own nation or to achieve “supremacy” over the West, he said.
It is clear that in the past few years, China has adopted a newly assertive posture, domestically and on the world stage, and this means the West needs to become stronger in relation to Beijing, while also being willing to work with China when possible, he said.
“We have to be strong enough to do whatever is necessary,” Blair said.
“We need to engage, to understand, to be able to work with China and to ensure that the relationship isn’t subject to mistakes” that could prompt confrontation, he added.
LOUD AND PROUD Taiwan might have taken a drubbing against Australia and Japan, but you might not know it from the enthusiasm and numbers of the fans Taiwan might not be expected to win the World Baseball Classic (WBC) but their fans are making their presence felt in Tokyo, with tens of thousands decked out in the team’s blue, blowing horns and singing songs. Taiwanese fans have packed out the Tokyo Dome for all three of their games so far and even threatened to drown out home team supporters when their team played Japan on Friday. They blew trumpets, chanted for their favorite players and had their own cheerleading squad who dance on a stage during the game. The team struggled to match that exuberance on the field, with
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
The US’ joint strikes with Israel on Iran dismantled a key pillar of China’s regional strategy, removing an important piece in Beijing’s potential Taiwan Strait scenario, said Zineb Riboua, a senior researcher at the Hudson Institute’s Center for Middle East Peace and Security. In an article titled: “The Iran Question Is All About China,” Riboua said that understanding the Iran issue in the context of China’s “grand strategy” is essential to fully grasp the complexity of the situation. Beijing has spent billions of dollars over the years turning Iran into a “structural strategic asset,” diverting US military resources in the
RSS